


Fall Back Into Place

by arcadevia



Series: Arcade’s Instagram Fics [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Confessions, Crushes, Domestic Fluff, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Pillow Fights, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), TikTok, because i like including social media for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadevia/pseuds/arcadevia
Summary: And actually,yes,he has, in fact, gone out of his way to make this as blatantly open as possible— from admitting things like“You look good today”(yeah like every fucking day, who is he kidding) to just flat out staring, like that could somehow explain the way his heart is nothing but of bowl of warm and content soup over Lance’s raging fire. Nothing but a cupid resting on the other’s cloud, nothing butseriously exasperatedbecause—Have you ever met a boy so oblivious, you just get angry?Or: Keith’s crush on Lance becomes too much to bear when his friend just can’t seem to take a hint.[Complete fic here, not a preview]
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Arcade’s Instagram Fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065515
Comments: 7
Kudos: 168





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One (alternatively, part 1 on ig). Chapter two is the rest of the work <3

Keith’s just about had it.

“Have you ever heard a song so pretty, you just like, I dunno, get angry?”

Lance is a chipper presence in Keith’s home, not quite unlike a holiday decoration. When he’s here, it feels right, he _fits_. It’s in the way he helps himself to whatever’s in the kitchen, mindlessly bringing an extra portion of the snacks up to Keith’s bedroom for them to share during YouTube deep-dives and laughing fits that make them snort back cracker dust and giggle even more.

Or, it’s in the way Keith comes home to find a boy who’s long since helped himself to the bed and burrowed so far under the plain, dark red covers, that only a nest of feathery brown hair peeks just above the hem of the blanket. _“The dorms are lonely,”_ he’s been told, but Hunk just shakes his head from over Lance’s shoulder, and later comes back around to mutter a discreet _“He just needs an excuse to see you since we’re not all at school anymore”_.

Lance attends their local university now while Keith opted to settle for his family’s auto repair shop. And thus, the almost holiday-type spirit surges when Lance is around because these visits have tapered down to just _barely_ enough to keep him sane. His friend studies like there’s no tomorrow nowadays, responds to Keith’s text messages at 4am: _“omg so sorry i had like 3 papers due at 11:59 and i haven’t actually slept for days”_ — yet he still shows up for lunch. He still stands here in Keith’s kitchen with webbed creases printed along his cheek from an impromptu nap Keith just couldn’t find in himself to interrupt, even if it meant his bed space being taken up by a starfish sprawl and putting up with Lance’s nonsense sleep talk.

It’s safe to say that with this sort of context, he can just cut to the chase now. Yes, he’s got a giant, hopeless crush on his best friend.

Yes, he tolerates nearly everything now because of it, even if it’d normally pluck at his strings of a short temper.

And actually, _yes_ , he has, in fact, gone out of his way to make this as blatantly open as possible— from admitting things like _“You look good today”_ (yeah like every fucking day, who is he kidding) to just flat out staring, like that could somehow explain the way his heart is nothing but of bowl of warm and content soup over Lance’s raging fire. Nothing but a cupid resting on the other’s cloud, nothing but _seriously exasperated_ because—

Have you ever met a boy so oblivious, you just get angry?

Because Keith has. And he’s staring at such right now, who’s clad in one of _his_ worn out t-shirts. The black dye’s been washed into a tired dark grey over the years, and it’s droopiness almost matches the relaxed slant of Lance’s eyes, still bleary and recovering from three hours of snoozing in Keith’s bed.

_“How could you let me just do that, dude? I’m actually going to kill you, holy crap.”_

Kill him. Seriously, a ruffled Lance with soft edges would be the sweetest sight to die to, it’s just something he’ll have to accept and is already ahead on starting such.

And he’s getting impatient— okay well, not about being killed, per say, but actually getting around to cuffing this boy before the perfume kiosk worker at the mall snatches up his friend’s number, or that chick in Lance’s psych class tries turning these study sessions he hears about into something else. Not that Lance would actually notice if he isn’t already putting on his own swagger and flirting to begin with. _In all the wrong places_ , Keith swears. It’s always in all the wrong places Lance finds it fit to pour his charm over someone who stupidly doesn’t even spare him the time of day.

He just wants to grab Lance’s face. Yell or whisper or murmur or groan _“I’m literally_ **_right here_** _”_. Because he’s got a shot! At least all of their friends say so and he’s left hanging onto all these supposed incidents happening behind his back to sum up just enough hope that _maybe_ Lance actually likes him back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tension is resolved :’)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to Space Song by Beach House for the right vibes of this fic ;)

_“He talks about you all the time.”_

_—2:34 AM: no actually tho that’s his lock screen because he said you look cute, course he tries covering it up saying u look stupid ig lol not even surprised—_

_“I’d scream. Like I would throw something if he gets with someone else, Keith, you’re his first pick but like, you know how he is…”_

_—7:18 PM: I think one time he was gonna ask you out but then came back and told me he accidentally insulted you… Srry bout that…—_

Enough is enough. Lance has always been _his_ first pick, is he kidding? Since ninth fucking _grade_ , which could be kind of embarrassing if he wasn’t currently living out past-Keith’s fantasy of finally picking up on rumors catered to such fluttery feelings he’d spent years throwing away from himself. Forget butterflies, this crush is made of moths and Keith’s weak heart is the brightest lamp in town.

So… so it just makes sense for him to let himself look into it and wonder if Lance does certain things because he’s self conscious now. The boy stares back a lot too, and returns that life-saving favor of being the only one to listen in a group of blabbering friends during hangouts. They hug, like they actually _hug_ and he’s told Keith that he likes it because his back pops sometimes (weirdo) and that Keith apparently holds tighter than all the others.

Everything’s changed since graduation from all these things uncovered, but it’s for the better in his opinion, and a little awkwardness is worth it if there’s a longer future ahead filled with open comfort he’s suddenly craving. Hugs _and_ kisses. God it’s actually disgusting. He wants to kiss Lance and smack it right off, or smack him and kiss it better, or just… no smacking at all.

“Like I remember this one song that played at the end of a movie and I felt like just beating someone up in the theater.”

Right. The song thing.

“I think that’s probably just your ADHD or something.” Keith shrugs. He only gets this kind of stuff from observation, and any guess like that is just a shot in the dark.

“Who knows,” Lance says as he rocks his hips from side to side, elbows propped on the kitchen island across from Keith as he stacks raspberries on each finger because he has the fucking audacity to just be cute about everything.

Keith snorts. “Don’t you take psychology?”

“Uhhh yeah but who says I’ve learned anything with freakin’... Kevin as my professor,” Lance grunts.

Keith leans across the counter and starts doing the same, giving each finger a little hat from dewy berries. “I don’t know who Kevin is.”

“Dumb and stupid guy.”

He takes Lance’s word for it, as well as the rest of their conversation that hopscotches through the other’s habit of skipping from topic to topic, ever so eager to get even a few words in about one thing before spewing a constitution-length amount of information over something Keith himself had never spent a second of his life even thinking of.

And as the berries begin to dwindle from a full to an almost empty carton, Keith tunes back in to the little things. Lance’s cheshire smile, or him winking after a sly remark, or playfully tugging a raspberry back off of Keith’s fingertip between the pucker of his lips, probably pure and well-meaning but the rush of generally uh, _mature_ thoughts that wash over Keith in the moment is downright concerning. A date first, more like making an actual _move_ first, then comes around all those layers (or lack thereof, he should say…).

“Okay— so.” Lance begins before swiftly popping each fingertip in and out from his mouth to swipe away the last of those raspberry remains. He wipes the pink tint of them with a brief scrunch of the shirt, and Keith doesn’t really care for it. That means it’ll be sticking with Lance for about a day, probably making it back to the dorms with the rest of his own laundry before washing it with a certain detergent, tossing it onto his bed, forgetfully letting it dwell for a while before awkwardly handing it back to Keith. It’ll smell like _Lance_ , and he tries his best not to feel like a creep so he’d rather shrug it on while the scent lasts rather than sniffing it all up or something.

“—want me to show you the song?”

Keith snaps back to reality. “Huh?” he questions with a stooped brow scrunch. And then— “Oh the one you’d mentioned earlier?” Hard to catch onto something related to a comment from twenty minutes ago.

“Yeah the angry pretty one,” Lance chirps.

“Sure, why not.”

“Alrighhht, _vamonos_ , my dear friend!” Lance says as he heads for the staircase. “I wanna play it on your little record speaker thing for the aesthetic.”

Keith follows Lance up the stairs, trying and utterly failing not to straight up stare at the dude’s ass. Not his fault it’s nice, alright? If anything, just looking is far better than the _drum solos_ the boy goes to town with on Keith’s. If he ever lays on his stomach for a nap or lousy social media scroll, it’s basically signing off full awareness that his friend can and _will_ jump right to his behind like a goldmine. Then again, he doesn’t care. Which is an aggravating feeling to accept but it gets Lance’s attention and he guesses this is a way around his touch starvation— right?

Course there’s nicknames too. _Captain America, Jell-o, Cap,_ fucking _Captain Jell-o_. A crush is _not_ going to stop Keith from strangling Lance the more insufferable these names become.

Lance hooks his phone up to the bluetooth speaker. It works just fine with actual records too; Keith’s got plenty album covers pinned to his wall, along with stacks of vinyls carefully put together in a crate at the bottom of his bookshelf. A foolproof birthday gift is just getting him another to add to the collection, which Lance has done with both albums he figures _Keith_ would enjoy along with ones he _himself_ would rather play. Lady Gaga clashes with his theme like a disco ball in a graveyard, yet her songs are bound to play every once in a while whether he likes it or not.

“Sun’s setting, this is _perfect_ ,” Lance says over the clunking sounds of clutter he maneuvers across Keith’s nightstand. “Trust me, you’re gonna wanna fight somebody so get ready,”

“What, like _we’re_ gonna be fighting?” Keith asks skeptically.

Lance sends him a smile over his shoulder. “Yeah we’re gonna throw hands cause it’s so pretty.” He sets aside a few things, places books back on the shelf, stacks empty cups, tosses utensils back in the drawers and so on. The music is playing now, a gradual and long lifting note that picks up a faint and steady beat along the way. Keith figures the slow start isn’t enough to get Lance fully up on his feet yet, so he stays leaned against the bed and admires the setting sun cast its first shade of light pink across the cloudy sky.

“Right…” he trails amusedly. “And if I even _do_ lose it and blow up for some reason, I’d probably win the fight.”

With one final shift, he sees Lance’s hunched figure tense before winding upright and turning his way. “What? Uhh yeah _no_ , I would be winning,” he says and crosses his arms. Keith does just the same.

_It would take a while_

_To make you smile_

_Somewhere in these eyes_

_I’m on your side_

The song is admittedly already alluring to him, and it’s drawn out notes whine through the air in a coaxing chorus, the same sort of hypnotizing sway that a parent would use to put their child to sleep. It’s sweet, along with added pings of what Keith can only imagine to be twinkling stars or blinking lights in an arcade game. One by one Keith is feeling the objects of his surroundings fall apart in a comforting heap of plain and blended colors, as opposed to sensible things and… people.

“That’s what you wanna believe,” he shrugs and Lance scoffs, pushing himself off of where he’d been leaning against the nightstand and over to Keith’s waiting stance.

He grabs a pillow—

“Lance, oh my god—“

And whacks Keith.

“Take _that_ ,” Lance says proudly, as if he’d landed some epic, boxing match blow and not mildly smacked Keith’s shoulder. “Fight me Keith, let’s go!”

Keith can’t help his laughter at all these pathetic hits, and he gets that it’s only a lame attempt at tempting him into another standoff, nothing to really grind his gears as much as just keep Lance entertained. But he doesn’t wanna fight him. He’d rather make good use of their time with such a nice song, whether it’s the idea of wrapping his arm over Lance’s shoulders if he were to be sitting in that theater right with him, or lazing around in the tinged pink light from outside now.

“Fight!” — _whack—_ “Fight!” _—whack—_ “Fight!”

Lance, apparently, has different plans. And above anything, Keith would like to make it known that the _song_ is not the reason for what he does about it, but how utterly exasperating it is to get his friend on board with a scene that’s obviously catered to more tender themes.

“ _You’re going down_ ,” he growls with an air of humor before the next blow, then curls his fingers into the pillow after it hurls back his way. Then,

“No—!”

He shoves Lance right back onto the bed.

“ _Oof._ ” Lance bounces on the mattress like a fish out of water. Keith would honestly be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the sight, how the force was easily taken in stride, how he recalls this kind of scene in an almost deja-vu like manner except the fantasy is followed with a heavier feeling and a smooth prowl up the bed, hovering over the boy’s body with a certain kind of want stirring in his gut at Lance’s tousled hair and unsteady breaths before dipping down and—

“You were supposed to grab a pillow, you jerkface!” Lance yelps, and in a hurry to forgo that sudden distracting turn his train of thought had taken, Keith plunges onto the bed, lacking grace as much as the former.

“AaH! N—“

Keith yanks the pillow out of Lance’s grip. “My pillow now,” he says as Lance squirms underneath with his arms crossed in the air above him.

“That’s—“ _Whack!_ “—cheating!” _Whack!_

Keith’s ready to call out _“No ground rules!”_ and dangle it over Lance’s head like all the times his friend had used to hover pencils high in the air and out of reach from his stout height, before he all but _slammed_ into puberty the summer after tenth grade.

But Lance is struggling. No actually, he is, as he desperately tries to tug the pillow from Keith’s grasp with a miffed little pout and limbs too awkwardly long and slender to really shift around the right way. Sometimes, when Keith imagines these close scenarios at any hour he manages to set aside for himself, he forgets the drastic differences the reality of it would bring, regardless of how accurately paralleled it is to what he’d wished for. Keith forgets how the bed creaks, how the sheets rustle or how his bedroom fan showers his bare skin with cool air and do _not_ get him wrong, it’s not— it’s not always _sexual_ or anything because that’s a slim share of endless possibilities. Keith daydreams about dates, about Lance’s arms wrapped around him on his motorbike or casually in public or in bed as Keith traces the tip of the boy’s nose with his own because he craves that affection so much it’s honestly _appalling_. And thank god magic or some advanced mind reading technology or superpowers don’t exist because Shiro? Yeah, he’d fucking _pummel_ this discovery into the ground with an even fiercer obsession with teasing him than before. Keith would simply pass away. There’s no other way around it.

And the reality he lives right _now_ has dealt its cards of those very things Keith’s forgotten. The sturdiness of Lance’s chest, how absolutely _blue_ those eyes are, the lingering taste of raspberry in his mouth and a doubtless possibility he’d taste it from Lance too.

Keith forgot about music.

Because it’s only ever Lance. Only him and Lance in his head, no background sounds or added sensations besides anything that comes with this boy. He doesn’t daydream about pinpricks in the wall from places where old band posters have long since been taken down, it’s just… brown hair and tan skin and blue eyes.

_Fall back_

_in_ _to_

_place._

So when Keith says that despite the contrast, _living_ the experience is much better, he means it. 

It’s all right here below him, where his friend continues squirming around and jostling them both, making tug-of-war with a pillow feel like trying to ride a bull. And he just doesn’t get the hint, does he? They’re literally _in bed_ with Keith _on top of him_ and sure Keith can’t tell if the rosy tinge across Lance’s face is from the sunset or a blush, but he’s got a feeling it’s both because those eyes just won’t meet his.

“Let go, you _cheater_ ,” Lance grumbles, but his efforts are still weak and Keith can practically _feel_ the elephant in the room, comprised of their unspoken feelings, smooshing them into the wall and making it harder and harder not to acknowledge just how and why they’ve ended up in a moment like this.

Keith yanks the pillow away and flings it back behind him. He feels like he’s losing his breath and time is running out somehow because they’ve lived through these interactions and nothing’s ever come of them besides another pining text conversation with a mutual friend. Basically saying something along the lines of _“he likes you back just make a move already”_ so he is—

He is.

_(Fall_ _back)_

Lance peers over Keith’s shoulder. “ _Keeeith_ , what the heck we were supposed to—“

_(in_ _to)_

Keith takes Lance by the chin for just a second of brief confirmation. Anything works, _any_ sort of go ahead or even a timid pause to allow for what’s to come. He sees the blooming shock in that pair of eyes, finally spellbound by obvious knowledge of what’s to come and he doesn’t stop Keith. Just lays there half leaned up and the second his lids flutter and hand draws up Keith’s leg—

_(place.)_

Keith kisses him.

It happens in only a matter of seconds. Just… one kiss, awkwardly pressed against a pair of loose lips after Keith had craned his neck the best he could for a decent shot at this. He knows it’s quick, but it happened. And his friend— his _crush_ ’s lips were soft and sleek like… it's just incomparable.

But it’s over in no time once a frantic feeling of dread and worry shoots up his throat, and he pulls away before getting the chance to decide whether he’d hallucinated the feeling of Lance kissing him back. 

_What makes this fragile world go round?_

_Were you ever lost?_

_Was she ever found?_

Their kiss— more like _Keith’s_ kiss, hangs between them and soaks into every edge of the room the longer the pinging music flickers out the speaker and pitters across the walls.

Lance looks at him, in a matter of seconds too, perhaps this all lasted only a _couple_ , and tilts his chin up to kiss him right back.

Keith finally lets himself close his eyes now as years worth of pent up butterflies— or _moths_ , like mentioned before, burst out from their cage in the pit of his stomach and plaster themselves across the barriers of his body. The spontaneity almost aches too, from where his brows furrow while he tries to keep up with his skyrocketed heartbeat and Lance’s swift inviting lips.

Their mouths curl together, Lance holds onto Keith’s arm in the same grounding way Keith cradles his jaw. The most resounding and unmistakable part of it all is _hearing_ such an exchange, because he hears Lance’s breaths as much as he feels them coat his lips with a damp layer of closeness and intimacy. He’s starting to understand why it’s called a _smooch_ too the more their kisses drag and carelessly overlap the music with their own unsteady rhythm. He likes it though, _god_ he does, and even feels himself preen under more gliding touches from a hand that wanders down to his hip.

He feels more comfort from it than imaginable, honestly. Lance is slower than he expected, perhaps even more timid too because his touch is stiff where he braves their boundaries and holds Keith by the waist.

Keith wants to say he’s embarrassed by it, (which admittedly, he is), when no movement from Lance could ever go wrong and only goes to loosen his inhibitions even more. And shit if that isn’t a bigger deal than it has to be because Lance is apparently a _good kisser_ ; he works through Keith’s waves of ferver like the beach in his hometown. A tilt here, a nip there, a prod of his tongue and Keith thinks he’s just about reached the first step to heaven if something so small can make him fall apart. He’s far, _far_ gone, and has been for as long as Lance’s expressions and thoughts and touches meant more to Keith than he’d liked to admit all those years ago.

The waves die down to tamer rolls now. Keith feels unspoken words, _confessions_ build between them and make their kisses harder to pursue when there’s still things that should be explained. He knows talking _could_ make it better, make that raspberry taste less tart and more sweet when he’s resolved just how Lance feels and has no need to dwell on just hope alone.

Keith’s eyes start to flutter open on instinct as he and Lance drift apart, but he doesn’t want the moment to end and forces them closed for a few seconds more while he catches his breath. He doesn’t know what Lance’s face looks like right now, going by those labored breaths it’s probably flushed past the point of a simple blush, yet… yet what if it’s the bad kind? And it’s filled with regret or shame or embarrassment or a dreadful mixture of them all? What if this was made from pity and not—

Keith feels another soft press against his mouth, Lance’s hands melt against his sides, and after that brief moment he lets himself follow his theory that the odds just might be in his favor.

Lance is looking at him when he opens his eyes. _Really_ looking at him, like peering through a slate of rippling water to see what’s on the other side. He feels like it should be obvious though, right? He just kissed his friend and… and that should mean he wants something a little more than that, perhaps (most definitely) daydreams about it too. Every time the idea of a first kiss with Lance came about, it was always rushed, just in a snap. Like he could bet that one day, the next time Lance stuck his nose a little too far into his personal space just to divert his attention away from a phone or a textbook, Keith would finally just think _screw it_ and kiss him the way his passion always drove him to. And if the other would squawk or flail around in a bewildered flurry, he’d simply tough up and just say _“‘t’s what you get for being up in my business.”_

There was always a cover. But right now, with his joints turned to solid stone like an immovable statue— with any sort of _explanation_ hanging in the air that’s expected of him, he just… doesn’t have one.

“Sorry,” he finds himself saying as he awkwardly clambers out of this straddle he had over Lance until his back sticks to the wall and his sweaty palms clutch the blanket on either side.

Lance swings himself up too, his hand readily sliding Keith’s way, just shy of his knee, but then it jumps up to anxiously comb back his own messy hair. Keith feels his spirit dampen a little from it.

“It’s okay! I just wasn’t really, uh, expecting that. I mean like that was a _great_ tactic at winning our little— heh, you know, I just don’t know if you meant it like…”

Keith finds himself smiling a little at that, but nonetheless his legs curl up a little and he starts plucking away at the loose frays of his pants. “It wasn’t for the game or anything.”

The music still plunders on, and he bets this is the last of the chorus before the tune is destined to taper away and leave them with an even thicker blanket of silence over them between every word spoken. He doesn’t want the song to end just yet. Maybe that could be his reason.

“And I don’t think the song made me wanna fight you.”

“I should play it more often then,” he hears Lance say, and when his head whips up he sees the boy wearing a timid smile. “Cause I really liked that, and um—“ Lance licks his lips, still searching Keith’s face though his eyes flit from one thing to another like they just can’t settle. “I really like you.”

_Fall back_

_into_

_place_

Keith feels the vagueness of his surroundings swarm back together again, the way sheens of light shrink back to solid dots or beams after blinking away tears. His brain is slow to catch up with it, just buffering and buffering but his heart picks back up and suddenly this machine is running again and there’s _hope_ and—

“Really?” he asks, like it’s too good to be true— because it _is_ and he almost regrets asking in the first place if it means giving Lance an inkling of a doubt before this turns into an active reality.

“Yeah, man,” Lance says with a weak laugh, it’s probably the prettiest _—ugh—_ sound Keith has heard since forever. “I thought I could finally make a move like, when we’d all go to the movies this weekend…”

Keith can’t help the lighthearted huff he lets out. “Sounds pretty cliche.”

“ _This_ is pretty cliche!” Lance squawks and pushes Keith’s knee in defense. Their banter is picking back up again, thank god, and as the tension starts to dissolve on the outside Keith still stays wary of himself so as not to crumble everything away with one wrong move or a stupid thing said. He’s careful.

“Then make your move.” He shrugs, yet the blush riding high on his cheeks is definitely selling him out right now. He’s _mostly_ careful.

Lance freezes for a moment. Then, slowly but surely, his brows stitch together in amusement, the corner of his mouth quirks up, and Keith can see the gears whirring in his head as he considers such an idea, so thoughtfully he’s already starting to lean forward.

_Fall back_

_into_

_place_

It’s almost unfair how smoothly Lance captures his lips, which is really stupid to actually say but _living_ through the moment is far less dreadful than reading any sort of cheesy novel in the adult romance section. He’d thought Lance was the clumsy type, the way he is with everything else where he’d probably topple over from his hand balanced on an uneven surface, or he’d accidentally pull Keith’s hair or make some weird noise. The dumbest part is that despite all those possibilities, Keith still _wanted_ it.

But he failed to consider one in which Lance’s hopelessly romantic instincts actually do him justice, and Keith can only turn to putty when despite all ways things could go wrong or messy at the least, Lance goes ahead and one-ups him like it’s nothing just by working his lips like magic.

He feels like _he’s_ the one losing his breath now, and not even from fierceness behind a kiss but at the smallest things, so tender they shock up his spine and make him sigh because Lance tucks away strands of hair and never stops pulling him forward by the mouth.

By the time the song ends, his lips are glossy, hair mussed, and jaw already sore from how relentless this sweet, slow, almost _torture_ was. Uh, the good kind, of course.

And Lance’s face seems like a mirror of what must look like his own now, yet the peek of white from his smile slips through and he’s far more giddy than how blown away Keith is. It’s almost like they’re roles had flipped, just from Lance’s way of proving himself.

“How’s that?” Lance asks. His gaze lays low to Keith’s agape, hanging mouth, like ridiculously admiring his own handiwork or something.

“Um,” Keith is only able to get out as his chest rocks with every breath. “Pretty—“ he sniffs, then sits up straight, “—pretty impressive…”

Something catches his eye just over Lance’s shoulder, where the latter’s phone rests on the desk, _upright_ and propped up against the speaker. A vibrant red dot at the bottom of the screen—

“Oh _shit_ .” Lance clambers off the bed after his eyes lock onto where Keith was staring. He clumsily snatches up his phone and presses the button. “I forgot it was recording, I-I was gonna like, post our fight on tiktok— I mean, _heh_ , you know how I am I just like wanted to show off my victory and all but—“

“But _I_ won,” Keith says, affronted, and scoots to sit at the edge of Lance’s bed.

His friend’s face twists incredulously, the way it always does when someone says something _“like, so beyond untrue I can’t even begin to explain why!”_.

“What, so you’re really more worried about that right now?”

Keith shrugs. “Technically I did.”

And _that’s_ what gets Lance going. He halfheartedly sets his phone aside and turns back to Keith. “Okay, fine! Fine, we’ll just have a rematch then.”

Keith can’t help but laugh at this kind of determination now, because he just knows that either way, at least with how things are going, a victory between them will matter a lot less if kisses come out of it. By the look in Lance’s eyes, he knows too.

“That won’t be a problem,” he says with a smirk while he tugs Lance in by the hand. There’s something a lot more exciting and less intimidating than this boy looming over him now.

Lance leans over slowly in an obviously sly attempt at coaxing Keith into defeat, so very tempting when his nose nudges right against Keith and he whispers: “We’ll see about that”.

Either way, Keith won’t mind. And if it takes all the wrestling and pillow fights in the world for those stupidly dreamy in-between’s to come true, then so be it.

_(Tiktok seems to agree too.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed <3
> 
> Read works & get updates in advance on [my instagram](https://www.instagram.com/arcadevia/). This fic was also under the [#spacesongklance](https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/spacesongklance/) tag.


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